woops

is not like other people
just watching the film Joker and absolutely cheering at the scene where he guns 3 bullies who are kicking the shit out of him on the train, best thing i've seen in a film for ages possibly ever. looks like he might do his workplace next
 

woops

is not like other people
2 of them are shit shot dead immediately, the 3rd instantly shits himself, but ends up getting shot dead anyway, masterpiece
 

woops

is not like other people
i had a bit of an :/ moment after finishing watching the film and rooting for the joker throughout, to read that the actor had deliberately set out to play a character audiences wouldn't identify with, and also of fears at the incel/massacre problematic potential of the storyline :\
 

version

Well-known member
i had a bit of an :/ moment after finishing watching the film and rooting for the joker throughout, to read that the actor had deliberately set out to play a character audiences wouldn't identify with, and also of fears at the incel/massacre problematic potential of the storyline :\
That happened with Breaking Bad too. The idea was that the protagonist would ultimately become the villain, but loads of people ended up rooting for him anyway.
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
Just watched Coherence, 2013 low budget sci to film. Like Primer it revolves entirely around its one specific sci fi gimmick and is as much a riddle as it is a film but still a good watch. Anyone else seen it?
 

woops

is not like other people
Just watched Coherence, 2013 low budget sci to film. Like Primer it revolves entirely around its one specific sci fi gimmick and is as much a riddle as it is a film but still a good watch. Anyone else seen it?
no but sounds good. i should watch this and then rewatch Primer a few times
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
Its much more manageable than Primer. You have a pretty solid idea of whats happened as soon as it ends, but theres still a bit to chew on.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
That's the one where they are at a dinner party and VERY MINOR SPOILERS then they keep going outside and it's different realities or something (caused by an asteroid?) and they keep carrying random objects to kinda keep tabs on where they've come from etc? I liked it at the start when you didn't quite know what was up and it was quite creepy.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I liked Primer but yeah it's basically impossible to follow just by watching it through.
We started watching Dark a while back and it's similar in that it has all these different time-lines and people turn out to be a grown up version of some kid come back from the future and so on.... and it got really frustrating. You can tell it's plotted correctly and accurately and all works in that way but it destroys a satisfying narrative and there's bit where something is maybe supposed to be shocking but it's not cos you have pause to work out what everyone knows cos of their personal timelines and the overall time lines and..... well, we gave up.
Sometimes with Lynch or something and people think "why did that happen?" or "doesn't that contradict that other scene?" and Lynch is like "Yeah maybe I dunno... it felt right" it's frustrating, but I think the other extreme of plot occurrences mapped out like points of intersection on some kind of technical graph ends up being worse. Or maybe I'm just never satisfied.
 

version

Well-known member
I recently watched The Ipcress File, Witness, Flawless, The Lost City of Z, Annihilation and First Man and enjoyed them all.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I recently watched The Ipcress File, Witness, Flawless, The Lost City of Z, Annihilation and First Man and enjoyed them all.
Which one?
Same question?
 

version

Well-known member
Yeah, Schumacher's Flawless. Although not because he died recently. Was just in my Netflix list. And Witness was the Peter Weir one where Harrison Ford goes undercover in an Amish community.
 

catalog

Well-known member
I watched "The Chimes at midnight", by Orson Welles, last night, funnily enough started watching at midnight.

Excellent. Very good story and Welles as Falstaff was really engaging, rambunctious and swarthy, almost unbelievably fat.

chimes-at-midnight.jpg


The first half is all comedy and fun, then the second half is tragic and moving. You get a bit lost in some of the lines but he keeps it moving and there's nothing too boring.

The look of it is also great, lots of smoke and fog. Good battle scene as well.

Chimes_24.jpg


I watched 'The other side of the wind' a few weeks ago and that's really good as well.

Might go for Othello and The Trial next.

Later Welles is very good I think.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I watched Scottish film Neds yesterday, directed by Peter Mullan who also appears as the protagonist's alcoholic father. It's about feral kids on Glasgow housing estates in the seventies fighting each other for no reason and generally getting in trouble with the law - and how the one kid who isn't part of it gets sucked in by the low expectations of those around him. It's very well realised, I guess the kids aren't actors and it's all very naturalistic and increasingly grim (obviously). It's two hours long and I really enjoyed the first three quarters of it but the last half hour or so seemed weaker, as though he didn't quite know how to finish off the story and some of the last bits are silly and don't quite fit with the rest of it.

 

nochexxx

harco pronting
Tourist Trap was fun and sent me down a bit of an 80's horror franchise rabbit hole, also watched Puppet Master's by the same director which was pretty odd.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Big Game, part of that President-in-Peril micro-genre that began during the second Obama term, bit with a weird Finnish twist.
 

catalog

Well-known member
Been on a bit of an Orson Welles film binge this weekend. Having been very impressed with "Chimes at Midnight", I watched both Othello and The Trial and they are both very good.

I think "Chimes" is probably the best of the three, mainly cos the other two are quite straight adaptations, so a bit more limited in terms of story.

But those two also excellent and highly recommended.

He uses a lot of odd/striking shots in all three, for example big close ups shot from below, but what I liked most was this thing he does where he "chops" up the frame by having a lot of bars/windows, sometimes trumpets/arrows/crosses and the like. Gives a good bit of noise to the square frame and also emphasises the trapped nature of the characters.

eg from Othello

Z1Pe6JY.png


from The Trial:

QQdrgRQ.png


And cos of the stark black and white he favours, he gets this brilliant shadow going on as well, so he gets a very painterly feel, for example:

zIpcccO.png


I also love how he uses smoke/fog/mist - he's well into it like Shakespeare, Dickens, Pynchon.

In this scene from The Trial, he's playing a shady guy who is getting a sort of face massage off his nurse, and there's steam rising off the mask, mingling with the bedhead ornament.

BPIO1QC.png


I love how in this scene from Othello, there's mist at top left, but nowhere else. Very deliberate.

pB7vqWg.png


And good clouds everywhere as well

VizOoMi.png


The Trial is probably the wackier of the three, the story is very loose and the whole thing very surreal, but it gives him the opportunity for lots of good set pieces

sZ57TnB.png


9Bz8ghD.png


Only issue is that maybe Anthony Perkins wasn't the right choice of actor.

I'm gonna get hold of all his other bits - think he did Macbeth and even a bit of Quixote.
 

version

Well-known member
Watched The Hunted (2003) last night. Not one of Friedkin's best, but better than the reviews would suggest. Tommy Lee Jones is a retired civilian special ops trainer tracking one of his former students who's gone rogue and butchered a couple of people in the woods in Portland. It's a simple story and there's a father - son dynamic that's telegraphed from the start, but it was engaging enough. There are some good chase scenes and I loved the way the forest was shot.

large-screenshot1.jpg
 
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